Saratoga parking lot sale rigged, critics say

Some prominent Democrats allege a land swap engineered by the public safety department and approved by the city council was tailored to attract one specific bidder, which they say may have caused the city to accept less for a parking lot in the downtown shopping district.

The council voted last month to sell the .48-acre Collamer lot at 500 Broadway for $775,000 to Ben Aronson of Rockland County and buy a 14.48-acre parcel on Union Avenue from Aronson for $200,000. Public safety officials for months were eyeing the Union Avenue corridor for a new fire/EMS station to serve the eastern part of the city. The land deals were a product of a request for proposals (RFP) created last year by Public Safety Commissioner Christian Mathiesen. The request mandated bids for the 42-spot lot be accompanied by a land offer to the city of at least three acres in a designated location.

The coupling of the deals has grown into a contentious political issue. While residents continue questioning if the city received full value of its last parking lot on Broadway, former Public Works Commissioner Thomas McTygue, former Mayor Raymond Watkin and former Finance Commissioner Remigia Foy recently hired Glens Falls attorney John Caffry to investigate the property deals. Caffry wrote to Mayor Joanne Yepsen last month, saying his clients were very concerned the RFP didn’t follow proper bidding procedures and the $775,000 the city accepted for the lot was far below fair market value.

“Indeed, it appears set up so that only one party, who was, unsurprisingly, the sole bidder, could have satisfied the very narrow criteria,” Caffry wrote to Yepsen in paperwork acquired through the state’s Freedom of Information Law.

Caffry urged Yepsen, a Democrat, not to sign the contract selling the lot, but the mayor did so last month after the city council’s three other Democrats and one Republican refused to second her motion for a vote to get a new appraisal of the Collamer lot.

There are significantly different opinions on the value of the Collamer lot. Armstrong Appraisals of Clifton Park valued the property for Mathiesen’s office in April 2013 – four months prior to the issuance of the RFP – at $775,000. This summer, attorney Joseph Zappone, principal of the Zappone Group of Latham, hired Bellcourt Valuation Service of Albany to estimate the lot’s value. That appraisal came in at $1.6 million. Zappone appeared at a city council meeting last month and offered the city $1.1 million for the Collamer lot. The city council already had committed to the dual land deals when Zappone made his “last-minute” offer, Mathiesen said.
The city’s accounts office assessed the parking lot this year at a full value of $641,125. Property assessments are often lower than market value, or what someone is willing to pay. The city charter states any sale of city property must be for fair value.

In an interview Thursday, Mathiesen said his office contacted Aronson, who owns the Algonquin Building next to the Collamer lot, prior to issuing the RFP to gauge Aronson’s interest in selling the city the Union Avenue property for a fire station. Aronson offered to sell it in exchange for the opportunity to buy the Collamer lot, Mathiesen said. The public safety department then had both properties appraised by Armstrong, which determined their values in May at $775,000 and $200,000. “Both seemed reasonable to us,” Mathiesen said.

The public safety department’s RFP stipulated those amounts for a minimum bid for the lot and a maximum price on “at least three acres and within a half-mile radius of the intersection of Route 9P, Meadowbrook and Gilbert Roads.” Bids for the Collamer parking lot without a land acquisition were not accepted. The city council held public hearings on the deals and authorized the buying and selling of the properties in December. The city wanted to see if there were other Union Avenue land owners interested in selling land and purchasing the Collamer lot for development when it released the RFP, Mathiesen said.

“We feel we have been completely aboveboard,” Mathiesen said. “Charges there was no transparency are simply unfounded.”

Critics of the Armstrong appraisals say they were based on outdated and faulty information. They point out the appraisals were prepared 16 months ago. One of the comparative properties Armstrong used to determine the Collamer lot’s value was the former .38-acre Lillian’s lot at 420 Broadway. Sonny Bonacio, president of Bonacio Construction, bought the lot from the city for $750,000 in 2012, but the sale price was negotiated in 2006.

The deal to buy the Union Avenue land from Aronson’s Congregation & Yeshiva Pardes Yosef D’Chasidei Belz, which is based in Rockland County, must be approved by the state attorney general because the sale involves a religious organization, Mathiesen said. That could take 30 to 60 days, he said. The city’s sale of its Collamer parking lot appears to be a done deal. Aronson’s Algonquin Building LLC plans to build a multi-story, mixed-use building on the lot. The city can use the lot for public parking until the LLC receives approvals from land use boards to build.

Caffry declined comment. McTygue, a public works commissioner for more 30 years, said the attorney is reviewing the land swaps and will make a recommendation about how to proceed next week. Yepsen said last month she authorized the sale of the lot at “the will of the council, regrettably.” On Thursday, she said she supports building emergency services in eastern Saratoga Springs, but it was unnecessary to link the two land deals in the RFP, which essentially restricted bidders to those who owned property in a specific part of the city and were prepared to develop the Collamer lot.

“An RFP should be written to ensure an open and competitive process is followed when selling taxpayer property,” the mayor said. “Because these two properties were linked within the RFP, only one bidder who met the criteria came forward. This is why many people feel fair market value was not obtained for the Collamer lot on Broadway.”

No, jerry, it’s not. On what basis does the City put the parking lot on the market but insist you have to be able to have something to sell, and not just anything but a very specific parcel of described real estate?

Is there something magical about the new fire station being within 1/2 mile of that specific intersection? I mean, really–does anyone believe the RFP was going to produce another bidder?

You know what they say about public RFP’s that are specifically written to produce one result? They are illegal, that’s what they say–not criminal, just against the law.

Will the developers who walked away with millions of dollars in profit, from the sale of the homes in Regatta View, participate in the purchase of the land for the new EMS station? Answer: Of course not.
It’s always the taxpayers who get stuck with the tab, after all the money is made by the developers.
Let’s face it, the new building will be a fire station. That means more paid firemen, full benefits, early retirements, etc.
This deal was rigged from the beginning.
The commissioner can be a very nice guy sometimes, and yet very smug about his decisions.
He was wrong, got caught, but now we can’t do a thing about it.

Open space all but gone in the city. Bye bye Saratoga!! You’ve reached the tipping point and have now become like every other city. Limited parking space and lost sky view with all you high buildings. You have ruined the city and the charm that brought so many here. Selling and moving out!